Years ago I saw a bag of Nutra-Saff (sometimes called “Golden Safflower”) on a store shelf and gave this version of safflower a try. None of the birds in my yard seemed impressed. Eventually it got eaten but not enthusiastically, so I didn’t buy more of it. But recently, after writing a post on How to Choose Birdseed For Backyard Birds, I started thinking about it and decided to give Nutra-Saff another try.
Each time I enter a home count in eBird, I include a note that the location is a “Suburban Wooded Back Yard.” The many mature trees in our yard are after all a part of the attraction for the birds that come here. Unfortunately over the past year or two, this description is starting to fray. Our lovely large trees keep falling in unusual numbers and each time this happens, it not only affects the yard’s human owners but also the birds and other creatures that live here. Over this past weekend another very large tree fell. This one in particular is going to have real repercussions for bird life in our back yard.
When Common Grackles camped out on my feeders in the spring, I got a Nuttery Globe Feeder to give smaller birds a chance to eat. Cage feeders like this one are sometimes the only way to keep aggressive nuisance birds from dominating feeders.